The Black And White Giant Panda of China

The giant pandas whose antics on the discovery channel make for a great source of entertainment for the people around the globe actually belong to the old lands of China. In the thousands of years old Chinese scriptures you will come to find mentions of giant pandas. The Chinese people fondly called them “large bear-cats.” In spite of love of the world population for these funny and loveable creatures, today giant pandas are one of the endangered species and international efforts are going on to prevent them from becoming extinct. Here are some facts about the giant panda:

Where to find

Presently you can find them in the mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. They naturally belonged to lowlands, but the encroachment of civilization has pushed them to the mountain fringes.

Diet

Bamboo is the favorite food choice of our giant panda. In fact over 90% of their diet consists of bamboo. They occasionally gorge on small helping of rodents or musk of deer fawns. In the national forests, giant pandas are given sugar cane, rice gruel, high-fiber biscuits, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes along with their favorite bamboo.

Life span

In the wild environment, the pandas live shorter than they live in the protected environment in the zoo. On an average, giant pandas live a life not longer than 35 years.

The zoological origin

Scientists have spent long time to find out the zoological relation between the pandas and other animals like bears, raccoons and similar groups of species. The studies in genetic code have confirmed their closer relationship with bears.

The problems like low productive rate, habitat destruction and shortage in the supply of bamboo plants contributed to the sharp decline in the number of pandas and the efforts to prevent them vanishing from the planet crosses the barriers of national boundaries.